grant1simons2 wrote:E Line should continue up into University where the 6U already goes. Making the final stop Stadium Village station.

Agreed. It would be nice if the E Line did its own thing in addition to being a Band-Aid for the crappy SWLRT routing.

EOst wrote:Not sure I love the perception of Minneapolis getting SW, Bottineau, Orange, half of A and lines B, C, D, and E before anyone considers the E 7th line, especially with several reconstruction projects planned or upcoming for the 2020-period. Maybe that timeline will shift once Riverview/Rush planning is complete, but man.

To be nitpicky, the B Line extends a bit more than twice as far into St. Paul as the A Line extends into Minneapolis, but, yeah, it's pretty lopsided.

DanPatchToget wrote:There has to be a way to speed this up. I thought the original plan was opening one ABRT route every year.

Assuming the state wanted to play ball with funding, since Republicans keep talking about how much they would prefer enhanced buses to choo-choos. That didn't happen, though.

The east metro basically has Rush, Riverview, and Gateway. And maybe eventually hBRT on 36.

Yes, for the A Line and Green Line, more of the corridor is in St Paul, but perception wise, people look at one of the end points being in Minneapolis, and thus Minneapolis is served by them anyways. The only transit line that doesn't touch Minneapolis so far is the Red Line, which is the epitome of "meh".

Yes there are technical reasons for that (and hBRT on 36 would also have that characteristic), but "valid reasons" never stop people.

IIRC, Downtown St. Paul only has around 40k jobs, while Downtown Minneapolis has 160k+. Work commuting is the largest driver of transit ridership, and parking and congestion are significantly larger problems on the Minneapolis side. DT Mpls. is significantly more active as well, with centralized nightlife, sports, universities, etc.
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When the aBRT/Rapid Bus program was launched, many of the corridors were already under study. Robert, Lake, Nicollet-Central, Broadway, Riverview, Rush were all being studied for larger investments. Snelling, Penn, Chicago-Fremont, and American did not have other studies underway, which explains why they will come first. St. Paul requested that the W 7th line be removed from the program, but there is a possibility that it returns at some point.
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I really like the idea of extending the Hennepin Ave (E Line) to Stadium Village. It would allow for a significant restructure of the 6 south of Uptown, and perhaps an introduction of a local NE-U of M bus line.

Tcmetro wrote:
I really like the idea of extending the Hennepin Ave (E Line) to Stadium Village. It would allow for a significant restructure of the 6 south of Uptown, and perhaps an introduction of a local NE-U of M bus line.

Such as Metro Transit's Route 13, which MT hopes to implement between 2018 and 2010.

It's used by Metro Transit and the opt-outs during State Fair service so from an organizational perspective there's a willingness, and there's obviously capacity, it just comes down to a question of usefulness.

Several 3's use it every morning and evening to queue up for the peak-time service west of Cleveland. But I'm not really sure how it would be useful to regular-route service, except perhaps as a way to bypass St. Anthony Park for the handful of Elm-Kasota 3's.

Right. It excels at what it was built for, to be a fast, traffic-free transit connection between the two campuses. But since it passes through basically nothing but rail yards and low-density industrial and SFH uses on its path, there's not much demand for transit beyond the shuttles, and what there is (Prospect Park and Surly) is served pretty well by the Prospect Park Green Line Station. Maybe if the innovation district takes off?

Aside: Interestingly, the campus buses do show up on the Metro Transit online maps and Trip Planner. Does anyone know, are they partially funded by the Met Council, or is the U just doing a fantastic job of collaborating with outside entities here?

U of M shuttles are considered part of the regional transit system and are open to the public. I'm pretty sure that they do not receive any operating assistance from Met Council. I believe they received money from Met Council for some buses, though. Most of their buses are owned by their contractor, First Transit.

Cause the 3 kind of already does that at a pretty good speed. Serving UofMn students who live near St. Paul campus but need to get downtown, or work there. If E line is a way of replacing 6 ridership, most of the demand falls between Uptown and probably Sanford Hall.

I'm holding off on splitting this into a separate thread. There probably won't be any real new/concrete information about this project for a while. Things we know: late 2020 / early 2021 opening (at best) and $77MM estimated budget (which is 2+ years old, so that could rise).

Very little has changed since I said this last fall:

We'll have to see how things go with the C Line getting fully funded ($36MM total) before we can even dream about this one becoming a reality. $77MM is a lot for a project that won't be getting any money from CTIB. It's pretty much hoping and praying on federal and Met Council money and a big chunk of the ~2018 bonding bill. Other than "it's the busiest bus line in the region", I think it's going to be a real uphill battle to secure that much funding. The City Council and state legislators are going to have to become champions of this specific project for that to happen, and with the long slate of projects ahead of this one (Orange, SW, Bottineau, C Line, streetcar?), there just doesn't seem to be a way this will get political headwinds until some of those are actually under construction.

My concern is that the political capacity doesn't exist to even begin paying attention to this project until 2018 at the soonest (when at least Orange, SW, and C will be under construction.) I guess the important thing for the next ~2 years is that the D Line project is funded for study and engineering, which I'm guessing could cost $5MM for a corridor this long.

The one thing that has changed since then is the pending CTIB breakup. If we can convince Hennepin County to pay for this with the expanded sales tax receipts, that's a game changer. Still won't get the line open before late 2020 / early 2021 though.

This is info I got from a friend who works for Metro Transit regarding the route 54 extension:
"The Route 54 Extension is a demonstration bus service project benefiting W. 7th St., the East Side of St. Paul, and Maplewood. We are working to implement a limited stop, demonstration bus service using funding awarded by the Transportation Advisory Board to the Metropolitan Council. Route 54 currently operates limited stop service 7 days a week connecting Union Depot, downtown St. Paul, W. 7th St., the airport and the Mall of America. The bus service demonstration project would extend weekday and Saturday Route 54 service from downtown Saint Paul to Maplewood Mall. This service expansion will offer a fast, one seat ride from the East Side of Saint Paul to major regional employment sites including the MSP airport and the Mall of America. We anticipate starting the new service in late 2017 and have secured operating funds for three years. At the conclusion of the demonstration period the performance of the route extension will be evaluated and a determination of whether to add the service into Metro Transit’s regular operating budget will be made."

The two things said 54 aBRT are waiting on would be the Riverview LPA and the 54 extension test.

The Riverview LPA will determine whether or not the aBRT will serve the Ford Site, and the 54 extension's resulting ridership bump whether aBRT is yet feasible in that corridor.

The 84 bus's ridership pre-A Line is comparable to the 54 bus' current ridership, and the projected increase in ridership from the 54 extension, respectively. Thus, despite the 54 extension being a "test", as long as it performs at least as well as expected, 3 years after 2017 is 2020, meaning it could be the G Line (assuming no dates change, which they usually do).